2018 Academy Fellow Profiles

JustLead Washington’s 2018 Leadership Academy Fellows join the program in its 5th anniversary year. The 29 current Fellows join a growing network of now over 140 community leaders committed to advancing equity and justice in Washington State.

JustLead Washington formed in 2017 to provide leadership and equity-related training and support to advocates and organizations whose work intersects with the law and justice systems in Washington State. Its signature Leadership Academy program was initially developed in 2013 as an initiative of the Washington State Access to Justice Board and is offered on an annual basis thanks to the support of a team of nonprofit, state, and individual funders.

Fellow Profiles as of March 2018

Elbert Aull is a former journalist who began his career in public defense at Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem in New York City. He now works at the Snohomish County Public Defender Association. Aull attended law school at The Ohio State University, where he graduated cum laude in May 2012 and served as an Articles Editor of The Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution (JDR). During law school, he assisted Professor Douglas Berman with the development of an amicus curiae brief in support of petitioners in Miller v. Alabama, which held mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles unconstitutional. As a newspaper reporter, Aull covered local and state politics in Maine. Aull was born in Honolulu. He was adopted in Hawaii and raised by military parents who settled in Hampton, Virginia.

Maren Anderson manages the Skagit Volunteer Lawyer Program, where she worked since 2016 to ensure the availability of civil legal services in a more rural county. Prior to that, Maren benefited from several years of experience in the Lummi Reservation Attorney’s Office, representing the tribe in child welfare, juvenile prosecution and child support cases and developing a deeper appreciation for the culture and values of tribal communities. Maren graduated from Whitworth University in 2003 and from University of Washington Law School in 2008. When she isn’t working, Maren enjoys hiking with her dog, Cedar, and keeping up with an ever-expanding selection of podcasts.

Dana Barnett is the Washington State Bar Association’s Diversity & Inclusion Specialist and staff liaison to the WSBA Diversity Committee. She previously worked as a mediator and trainer for the Mediation Center of Dutchess County in Poughkeepsie, New York, before working in civil legal aid in Philadelphia and for the King County Bar Association. In addition, Dana has spent the last two decades as a community organizer and a social- and racial-justice facilitator. She earned a master’s degree in humanistic/multicultural education from State University of New York New Paltz.

Michaela Brown is a deeply curious, over thinking, heart in hand historian who has been a part of the Excelerate Success team since the partnership’s inception with the United Way of Spokane County in 2014. Born and raised in Spokane, she feels divinely placed and called to serve her hometown. During her time at Gonzaga University as an ActSix Scholar, she was fully immersed in multicultural student activism and inclusion efforts. Her formal education in history and general passion for multi-cultural education and identity development lead her to Excelerate Success, in a crazy, random, serendipitous kind of way. Outside of her fulltime work with Excelerate Success, Michaela participates as a race equity trainer with the Greater Spokane Progress Racial Equity Committee. She also serves as a board member for the Spokane Eastside Reunion Association (SERA) and is an active member and volunteer in her Church Community.

Janet Chung is Advocacy Director at Columbia Legal Services, where she oversees the litigation, policy, and communications teams’ systemic advocacy to advance social, racial, and economic justice for marginalized populations. Prior to her current role, she served as Legal & Legislative Counsel for Legal Voice, where she led efforts to advance reproductive health care and justice, expand economic justice for women and their families, and combat gender discrimination in the workplace and in schools. She has drafted successful legislation on pregnant worker rights, access to insurance coverage for reproductive health care, and paid sick and safe days. She served as counsel or amicus counsel in a wide range of cases, including successful litigation to prohibit stereotyping of pregnant and parenting workers; to protect the privacy of fetal tissue researchers; to ensure the rights of sexual assault survivors; and to safeguard access to health care regardless of a provider’s religious objections.

Ms. Chung is a frequent speaker on gender equity, workplace rights, and reproductive health care. She previously practiced employment law and business litigation in law firms in Seattle and Washington, D.C., taught in Seattle University School of Law’s legal writing program, and clerked for a federal district judge in her hometown of Houston, Texas. She has received a Georgetown University Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship and the Ford Foundation Public Voices fellowship. Ms. Chung is a Past President of Washington Women Lawyers (WWL) and currently serves as a board member of Asian Pacific Islander Americans for Civic Empowerment, a civic engagement and voting justice organization, and is a member of the Seattle Labor Standards Commission. Ms. Chung is a graduate of Yale College and Columbia University School of Law.

Kristi Cruz is the staff attorney at the Northwest Justice Project for the CLEAR*ASL statewide intake and referral line. Ms. Cruz was certified as an American Sign Language Interpreter in 1996 and became a member of the Washington Bar in 2009. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Seattle University School of Law in December 2008 and was the inaugural Seattle University School of Law Leadership for Justice Fellow (2009) during which she worked on language access issues at the Northwest Justice Project. In 2013, NJP received a TIG to create the CLEAR*ASL program, where Ms. Cruz provides direct legal services in American Sign Language to Washington’s Deaf residents statewide through a video phone connection and conducts outreach with the Deaf community to raise awareness of legal aid services.

Ms. Cruz is involved in state and national efforts to reduce language barriers for LEP and Deaf individuals as they access education, healthcare, legal, and governmental services. She routinely provides training to law students, judges, and other legal professionals on language access rights and tips for working with LEP and Deaf clients through interpreter services. She is actively involved with the Washington State Coalition for Language Access (WASCLA) and serves as an advisor to the Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts Interpreter Commission.

D’Adre Cunningham, J.D. is currently the Incarcerated Parents Project attorney at Washington Defender Association in Seattle, Washington. She has recently collaborated with the University of Washington Court Improvement Training Academy & the Washington State Office of Civil Legal Aid Children’s Representation Program to build a community of practice among attorneys representing legally free and other dependent children in Western Washington. She formerly served indigent clients for 15 years as a public defender at The Defender Association, now a division of the King County Department of Public Defense. She spent five of those years as an Attorney Supervisor in the Dependency Unit.

D’Adre’s other legal experience includes representing children and parents in child welfare proceedings; defending indigent adults in Seattle Municipal misdemeanor proceedings & in King County Superior Court felony proceedings; and advocating for systemic reforms at The Racial Disparity Project. D’Adre is an alumna of the University Of Washington School Of Law. She recently served in a volunteer capacity as a member of the Executive Committee of the WSBA Juvenile Law Section Executive Committee. She participates in the King County Bar Association’s Juvenile Justice Taskforce and serves in a volunteer capacity as a Board member at Solid Ground.

Richard P. Devenport is the JR Institutions and Reentry Staff Attorney at TeamChild.

Nikki D’Onofrio is the Programs Manager at LAW Advocates, the Volunteer Lawyer Program serving low-income Whatcom County residents. She received her B.A. from Western Washington University’s Fairhaven College with a self-designed major focused on responses to violence against women. She then worked with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and coordinated a volunteer advocate program at a local non-profit. Wanting to try something different, Nikki served for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Uganda. With two international NGOs, she worked on projects including gender based violence prevention, HIV/AIDS prevention, and malaria prevention and treatment. She focused on non-profit management and serving a growing population of older adults in the Master of Social Work program at the University of Washington. Upon graduating in 2016, Nikki hiked 900 miles from southern Oregon to Whatcom County, Washington on the Pacific Crest Trail and Pacific Northwest Trail. She is grateful to have been able to move back to Bellingham and find social justice work in the community she loves.

Sarah Glorian graduated in 2000 from Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and began her legal career in Maryland. In 2007, she was hired as a senior attorney for the Aberdeen field office during a statewide expansion of Northwest Justice Project. As a generalist, her rural practice focuses on housing, consumer, barriers to employment, and related civil rights issues.

Jennifer Greenlee has a distinguished career in public service at both the State of Washington and the City of Seattle. Her experience in public administration includes investigations, training development and delivery, legal proceedings, alternative dispute resolution, policy/legislative analysis, and employee and program management. She has been a member of the Washington State Civil Legal Aid Oversight Committee since 2012, including serving as the past Chair, and participated in the Advisory Committee for the Leadership Academy from 2012-2016. She graduated from Leadership Tomorrow in 2014 and is current President of the Seattle Management Association, a leadership organization for City of Seattle employees. She is a certified mediator volunteering with the King County Inter-Local Conflict Resolution Group and the Seattle Federal Executive Board.

Ms. Greenlee holds Human Resources Certifications from the International Public Management Association for Human Resources, the Human Resources Certification Institute, and the Society for Human Resources Management. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Seattle University before obtaining a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Washington School of Law and is a member in good standing with the Washington State Bar Association.

Kristin Hanna is a dedicated trial lawyer who has represented thousands of criminal defendants in the courtroom throughout her career. She received her BA in History from Western Washington University in 1988, her JD from Seattle University in 1991, and was admitted to the Washington State Bar in 1992. Kristin practices law in Bellingham, WA, where she serves on the local public defense advisory committee, and volunteers for the Restorative Community Coalition, to advance the cause of justice.

Harry F. Higgins is the Program Coordinator at the Housing Justice Project in Kent, a position he has held since graduating from the Highline College Paralegal Program in May 2010. HJP provides emergency defense for low income tenants in King County who are facing an eviction hearing. Harry is a member of the South King Council of Human Services, the South King County Forum on Homelessness, and sits on the Highline College Paralegal Program Advisory Committee. He has forged numerous partnerships with various south King County human service providers, to better serve HJP clients. He recently began serving on the ATJ Board’s Communications Committee.

Prior to becoming a paralegal Harry spent 22 years as a television news photographer for NBC, ABC and Fox stations. His assignments included covering the National March for the Homeless in Washington DC, and a series of reports about the residents living in a landfill outside of Tijuana. Harry holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Washington, is a Navy submarine veteran, and is a graduate of the Navy’s Leadership and Management Education and Training program. He lives in Sumner with his wife and dog, enjoys golf, bicycling, and teaches photography through the Mountaineers outdoor organization.

Nicole Jenkins-Rosencrantz has worked at Spokane County Juvenile Court for seventeen years in various roles: Juvenile Corrections Officer, Guardian ad Litem, Case Manager, and Probation Counselor. Her current roles include Diversion Unit Supervisor, Racial and Ethnic Disparity Site Coordinator, and Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative Co-Coordinator. She is passionately engaged in on-going efforts to reduce the disparities experienced by marginalized families and youth of color. She believes that working in the justice system gives her a unique perspective and connections that can lead to positive collaborations for systemic change. Nicole views championing the creation of just and equitable outcomes for marginalized communities as not just a hope and a wish but a necessity. She sits on the Spokane Regional Trafficking Task Force focused on strategies to address and curb Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children. She also sits on the Board of Directors for Teen & Kid Closet, a boutique that offers a free shopping experience for homeless and fostered youth.

Bonnie Linville is a managing attorney at TeamChild in Yakima. Bonnie provides civil legal aid to youth in a wide variety of areas, including dependency, access to education and access to health care and mental health care. Bonnie is active in local efforts to combat homelessness, particularly among youth. Bonnie is a graduate of Tulane Law School.

Michelle Lucas is a Staff Attorney at Sexual Violence Legal Services of the YWCA (SVLS) where she provides civil legal assistance to survivors of sexual assault. She is also a current member of the Washington State Access to Justice Board. Prior to joining SVLS, Michelle worked as a Judicial Clerk in Snohomish County Superior Court. She also has previous experience in social services with the City of Seattle and Solid Ground, focusing on seniors and people with disabilities. Michelle spent several years as a volunteer domestic violence victim advocate with the Seattle Police Department Victim Support Team and is a current volunteer with KCBA’s Neighborhood Legal Clinics. Michelle received her Juris Doctorate from Seattle University School of Law and her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington.

Sarah MacDonald is Marketing & Communications Manager at Legal Voice, an organization that uses the power of the law to create positive change for women, families, and LGBTQ people in the Northwest. She uses her expertise in digital communications to advocate with and for marginalized communities and people who have been failed by the legal system. She strongly believes that storytelling plays a critical role in dismantling systems of oppression. Sarah is a film enthusiast, a whiskey drinker, and a proud product of the 80s.

Cecilia A. Martínez-Vásquez was born in El Salvador at the start of its 12-year civil war. After a bombing of her neighborhood, Cecilia’s family migrated to Washington State as undocumented immigrants. Shortly thereafter they applied for political asylum. This experience inspired in Cecilia the desire to learn about the immigration experience in relationship to the US legal system. With this in mind she attended Washington State University for undergraduate degrees in Political Science, Women’s Studies, and American Ethnic Cultures. Upon graduation, Cecilia worked in the Yakima Valley with farm worker families. After two years and supported by the Ronald McNair Scholars Fellowship, she moved to Arizona to work on her Masters in Justice and Social Inquiry with a focus on the Immigration Experience of Youth and Identity Development. After 16 years Cecilia was able to travel abroad and go to El Salvador to reconnect with extended family. Now Cecilia works for the City of Bellevue and lives in Burien with her partner, enjoying music, food, and good company. Family and friends are the core of her life. Her daily motto is to use “education… [as] the practice of freedom… to deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to practice in the transformation of [our] world.” Paulo Freire

Chiedza Morrison is an Assistant Attorney General (AAG) with the Washington State Attorney General’s Antitrust Division. As an AAG, Chiedza investigates and litigates violations of the state and federal antitrust laws, and collaborates with the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice and other states attorneys general to promote competition. In addition to her work as an AAG, Chiedza is a champion of pro bono and civil legal aid services, serving on the WSBA Pro Bono and Public Service Committee, and as a member of the board of directors for the Northwest Justice Project. Prior to joining the Washington State Attorney General’s office, Chiedza attended the University of Illinois College of Law. Chiedza earned her BA in Sociology from the University of Washington.

Nicholas Oakley manages statewide reform initiatives on behalf of Washington State’s LGBTQ+ youth involved in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems as well as commercially sexually exploited children at the Center for Children & Youth Justice. Nicholas’ work is based on close partnerships with juvenile justice, child welfare, law enforcement, and homeless youth service providers across Washington. Prior to joining CCYJ, Nicholas worked at a Seattle law firm representing children, youth, and families in juvenile offender, dependency, education, domestic, and criminal matters. He also served as a lecturer in the University of Washington School of Law Child and Youth Advocacy Clinic. Nicholas holds a JD from the University of Washington School of Law and a BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Between entering law school and completing his undergraduate degree, he spent four years as an educator. Two of these were as a Peace Corps secondary education volunteer in the Republic of Georgia.

Mubarak Abdur Raheem is currently an Assistant City Prosecutor for the City of Spokane. There he uses his unique perspective and life experience to cover both of the City of Spokane’s Community Courts. Prior to joining the Prosecutor’s Office Mubarak worked as a Felony Public Defender in Okanogan County. Prior to Okanogan he volunteered as a public defender in Kitsap County to gain valuable experience.

After graduating from the University of Washington with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and Communications, Mubarak went to work for Rite Aid in the Retail Management program. Working there is where he met his wife Sarah. He left Rite Aid to pursue law school. Mubarak received his J.D from Lewis and Clark Law School. He and Sarah got married his first semester of law school and now have three beautiful children named Sameyah, Kalilah, and Mubarak Jr. In his free time Mubarak enjoys spending time with his family, watching Husky and Oakland Raider football, working out, cooking and jazz music.

Sara Robbins is the Program Manager and attorney for Benefits Legal Assistance (BLA) at Solid Ground. She has been with BLA for eight years. Her work focuses on providing civil legal aid to low-income individuals and families in the area of state public benefits. Prior to working as an attorney with BLA, Sara worked as a case manager for eight years helping homeless families find and maintain housing and helping them to overcome barriers that led to homelessness. Sara graduated from Seattle University School of Law in 2007. Outside of work she enjoys gardening, baking and spending as much time as possible with her partner and two young daughters.

Kurtis Robinson is the president of the Spokane NAACP and has served as the NAACP Alaska Oregon Washington State Area Conference Criminal Justice Chair. Kurtis is also a Smart Justice Spokane Executive Committee Member, a Board Member of the Spokane County Behavioral Health Advisory Board and Revive Center for Returning Citizens, and a Spokane Community Court Advisory Board Member. Kurtis also works as a Wildland Firefighter and with Spokane County Fire District 10.

Blanca Rodriguez is the Supervising Attorney of sexual harassment and gender discrimination advocacy for Northwest Justice Project’s Farmworker Unit. Her advocacy has been at the forefront of the effort to eliminate workplace sexual harassment for farmworkers in Washington. Blanca also represents farmworkers facing disability discrimination, unpaid wages, health and safety violations, and other workplace abuses. Blanca has previously worked at Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and was an Equal Justice fellow with the National Farm Worker Service Center.

Noah Samuels worked in his native Chicago as a litigation paralegal fighting against predatory mortgage lending before moving out to Seattle in 2013, where he joined the Northwest Consumer Law Center just a few months after it opened. Over the past five years, with his contributions to its infrastructure and client services, NWCLC has grown into a key player in Washington’s statewide legal aid community. He became its second Executive Director in July 2017 and is excited to lead the organization in helping fill the justice gap in Washington State. In his free time, Noah enjoys yoga, hiking, and performing music for senior citizens in assisted living facilities.

Breanne Schuster is a Staff Attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington Foundation (ACLU-WA), where she fights to protect and advance the civil rights of Washingtonians. Prior to joining the ACLU-WA staff in 2015, Breanne worked and volunteered with a number of organizations, including the Alliance for a Just Society, Disability Rights Washington, and the Washington Defender Association, as well as the Society of Counsel Representing Accused Persons (SCRAP) and the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project. Breanne has a B.S. in Dance and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and received her law degree from Seattle University School of Law, where she served as an Executive Editor for the Seattle Journal for Social Justice. When she’s not working, Breanne attempts to enjoy a slightly overambitious list of hobbies that include dancing, drawing, painting, cooking, singing, the end of long runs, and reading.

Magaly Solis was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States in 1999 to reunite with her parents and siblings who had relocated to the Yakima Valley in search of better opportunities. She was the first in her family to graduate high school and attend college. Magaly graduated from Heritage University in 2008 with a teaching degree, deciding to pursue education because she was fascinated by the learning process.

In her current role at La Casa Hogar as the Citizenship Program Manager and Partially Accredited Representative by the Department of Justice Recognition and Accreditation Magaly represents lawful permanent residents in their process to become U.S. citizens. To La Casa Hogar Magaly contributes a background in teaching, community organizing and deep understanding of the systematic barriers that exist for immigrant and farmworker communities in Yakima County. Previously Magaly was a medical interpreter for injured farm workers in the Yakima Valley for 10 years. She is passionate about social justice work, self-empowerment through education and advocating for immigrants’ rights. When not working Magaly loves to explore the Pacific Northwest and to be close to bodies of water.

Mary Welch has worked for legal aid in Washington state since she graduated from the University of Denver College of Law in 1999. She started in July 1999 as a staff attorney with the Northwest Justice Project’s (NJP) farmworker unit in Kennewick. One year later, the NJP office closed and Mary was hired to work at the newly opened Kennewick office of Columbia Legal Services. She worked there from August 2000 until December 2004, first as a staff attorney, then as the managing attorney. In January 2005 Mary rejoined NJP to work as a staff attorney at NJP’s Bellingham office. Mary is an experienced advocate and her work focuses on consumer, employment, and family law.

Lindsey Wilson is a native Washingtonian, proud Husky, and the co-founder of Unloop, a non-profit working to enable people who have been in prison to succeed in careers in technology. Recognizing both the empowerment of a tech career on her own life, and that the rising tide of tech was not lifting all boats, she founded Unloop to utilize the tech industry as a vehicle for social change and to extend techs’ opportunity to those marginalized by involvement in our criminal legal system.